Seeking Knowledge, Even by Traveling to Mozambique!

Published in October 4, 2017

Translated by: Ahmed Fathy

Introduction:

1- We have received this question; we answer it in this article for the last time, as we have answered it before in many fatwas. Yet, it is OK to repeat the answer since we live in the era of collapse and triviality. We are sorry to day that most people are too lazy and reluctant to read our archive of previous writings.

2- This is the question of the male sender: (... Dear Sir, ... Why do not you accept hadiths that are asserted in Quranic verses?! ... For instance, God urges us to seek knowledge anywhere as per 9:122 ... This very message is repeated in the known hadith: (believers are to go on seeking knowledge , even by traveling to China)... You see? I tend to think that not all hadiths/narratives are wrong, as you have told us many times in your YouTube videos ... What do you think? Why are you rejecting this hadith about seeking knowledge in China?! ...)

OUR REPLY:

Firstly: a decisive issue of faith:

1- Quranists believe ONLY in one narrative/discourse/hadith in Islam: the Quran as God's Word. This is the point that differentiate between real submitting, monotheistic believers (i.e., Muslims) and polytheists among the Muhammadans who insist on sanctifying and believing in books authored by men. The Muhammadans disbelieve in the following verses that assert the Islamic fact that the Quran is the Only Discourse to believe in within God's religion of Islam: "Have they not observed the government of the heavens and the earth, and all the things that God created, and that their time may have drawn near? Which discourse, besides this, will they believe in?" (7:185); "Woe on that Day to the deniers. In what discourse, beyond this, will they believe?" (79:49-50); "These are God's Verses which We recite to you in truth. In which discourse, after God and His verses, will they believe? Woe to every sinful liar. Who hears God's verses being recited to him, yet he persists arrogantly, as though he did not hear them. Announce to him a painful torment. And when he learns something of Our verses, he takes them in mockery. For such there is a humiliating torment. Beyond them lies Hell. What they have earned will not benefit them at all, nor will those they adopted as allies instead of God. They will have a terrible torment. This is guidance. Those who disbelieve in their Lord's verses will have a torment of agonizing pain." (45:6-11). 

2- Many great aphorisms, proverbs, sayings, general truths, and phrases of wisdom, etc. have been uttered/written by literary figures, historians, philosophers, etc. of many eras, and however great they are, they remain as discourses, quotes, and phrases created by human beings, and therefore, they are NEVER part of God's religion. God will judge us on the Last Day based on the Quran as the criterion. Wise words of people are NOT part of Islam. Aristotle defines moral virtue as a disposition to behave in the right manner and as a mean between extremes of deficiency and excess, which are vices. Confucius said thatbefore you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.. One of the Sufis said that if one is not occupying his mind with the Truth, his mind will be occupied with falsehoods. A Hollywood star, whose name we have forgotten, said that telling lies is a crime for which everyone is penalized, except for politicians. The preacher Abou Mu'aweiya the Blind was sitting at one time at the court (among other guests) inside the palace of the Abbasid caliph Harun Al-Rasheed, and the caliph ordered a chalice of water to be brought to him. This preacher asked Al-Rasheed what he would give in return for this chalice of water if he were to be so thirsty alone, and on the verge of death, and the caliph said he would give half of his empire for it. After Al-Rasheed drank the water, the preacher asked him what he would give in return for being able to urinate this water, if he were to be too sick and cannot urinate and sought a cure, and Al-Rasheed told him he would give his whole empire for getting a cure. The preacher then told him with a smile that an empire not as precious as drinking water does not worth struggling over it.       

3- Of course, countless volumes and books within many fields are filled with wise words and phrases that enrich our life and are very useful and precious gems of human thought; yet, they reflect their authors and they are NEVER part of the Islamic religion at all. In contrast, there are millions of base, mean, low, insulting words and phrases that fill the cyberspace and reflect their authors and their mentalities. Both types of man-made words/phrases (insults and pieces of wisdom) are never part of God's religion, because they are authored by human beings and God will judge them like the rest of all human beings on the Last Day. God is the Sole Owner of religion and the Sole Eternal Judge on the Day of Resurrection.    

4- It is a grave sin and crime and a veritable Taghut (i.e., the Quranic term for the worst type of tyranny) to ascribe false discourses/narratives to God and to Muhammad while claiming that such narratives are divine revelation like the Quran and must be part of Islam. This is the way by which earthly, man-made religions of Satan are created after the descent/revelation of scriptures conveyed by God's messengers. This crime/sin has occurred in every single time a messenger died; e.g., this occurred after the death of Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. The imams/leaders of the Muhammadans have invented countless narratives/hadiths and attributed them to God and to Muhammad; very few narratives seems apparently to be 'good' and the vast majority is nonsensical and trivial and mere balderdash.  Such narratives/hadiths constitute the devilish religion of Satan, as devils seek to repel people away from God's Word: the Quran. We, Quranists, refuse to accept any narratives/hadiths ascribed to God or to Muhammad; the Quran is Enough for us as per the Quranic verses we have quoted above that assert that the Quran is the Only Discourse in Islam.    

Secondly: we repeat what we have written before about the verse 9:122 and the Arabic/Quranic word (deen), i.e., "religion" or "path":

The term (deen) means physical route, road or path:

1- God says in the Quran: ""It is not advisable for the believers to march out altogether. Of every division that marches out, let a group remain ahead, to gain understanding of the route (deen), and to notify their people when they have returned to them, that they may beware. (9:122). This verse is misunderstood by Sunnites; they assume that some people are to fight and some are to travel through the land to gain more knowledge of religion. This misunderstanding has occurred because the word (deen) in Arabic refers to religion and to a figurative or physical, tangible path or route. The verse 9:122 comes in the context of self-defense fighting for God's sake by the Yathreb dwellers.

2- It is silly to imagine that 9:122 commands fighting people to leave a group among them to leave for Yathreb (or to go anywhere else) to seek religious knowledge while Muslims were at war! This verse has descended in Yathreb, as we infer from the previous verse: "It is not for the inhabitants of the city and the Desert-Arabs around them to stay behind the messenger of God, nor to prefer themselves to him..." (9:120). Why believers would leave the self-defense military endeavors to seek religious knowledge in Yathreb or elsewhere?! How come they would seek it while Muhammad was defending Yathreb with them?!  Was there any other locations in Arabia (or the whole world) at the time to gain knowledge of Islam away from Muhammad?! Thus, 9:122 has been grossly misunderstood by Sunnite scholars.

3- The term (deen) in 9:122 does not refer at all to the religion of Islam, but it refers to a physical pathway or route trodden by people's feet. This verse urges fighters of Yathreb to send reconnoitering groups ahead to pave the way to the troops defending Yathreb; that is all. These small groups are to get knowledge of the route and of the enemies if possible. This wrong misunderstanding of 9:122 was because of the scholars of the Abbasid Era who assumed that gaining knowledge refers solely to their religion (i.e., silly Sunnite hadiths and fiqh). Those Sunnite polytheists never use their minds at all to discern and infer meanings of Quranic verses: "We have destined for Hell multitudes of jinn and humans. They have hearts with which they do not understand. They have eyes with which they do not see. They have ears with which they do not hear. These are like cattle. In fact, they are further astray. These are the heedless." (7:179); "Among them are those who listen to you; but We place covers over their hearts, to prevent them from understanding it, and heaviness in their ears. Even if they see every sign, they will not believe in it..." (6:25); hypocrites are described as follows: "That is because they believed, and then disbelieved; so their hearts were sealed, and they cannot understand." (63:3); "...but the hypocrites do not understand." (63:7).        

4- To understand 9:122 in the right way, we must examine the whole context before it: "It is not for the inhabitants of the city and the Desert-Arabs around them to stay behind the messenger of God, nor to prefer themselves to him. That is because they never suffer any thirst, nor fatigue, nor hunger in the cause of God, nor do they take one step that enrages the disbelievers, nor do they gain anything from an enemy, but it is recorded to their credit as a righteous deed. God does not waste the reward of the righteous. Nor do they spend any expenditure, small or large, nor do they cross any valley, but it is recorded to their credit. That God may reward them in accordance with the best of their deeds." (9:120-121). These verses are related to self-defense fighting legislations. Aggressors attacked Yathreb (i.e., the city as a target) from all directions in the Arabian deserts; the defense plan was to get out of Yathreb to meet and the enemies before they raid and enter into Yathreb. God in 9:120-121 has urged believers (who suffered thirst, fatigue, and hunger and spent their money) to be steadfast and never to let Muhammad down, and they will be rewarded by God in the Hereafter; they asked Muhammad about what to do in case they would be ambushed and the answer has come in this verse: ""It is not advisable for the believers to march out altogether. Of every division that marches out, let a group remain ahead, to gain understanding of the route (deen), and to notify their people when they have returned to them, that they may beware. (9:122). This reconnoitering group would make them be warned and aware of any ambushes made by the enemy. The Yathreb city-state was surrounded by hypocrites among desert Arabs (see 9:97), and self-defense fighting endeavors must be done within piety and the fear of the Lord; i.e., without aggression because God never like transgressors: "O you who believe! Fight those of the disbelievers who attack you, and let them find severity in you, and know that God is with the pious ones." (9:123).      

5- The idea of (marching out) in 9:122 means that the troops of the Prophet Muhammad went out of Yathreb to meet the enemy outside the city; reconnoitering was necessary, then, to know the routes and to readily avoid being ambushed by the enemies.

6- The word (deen) in 9:122 means the physical route/path we trod upon, and it does NOT refer to religion at all.

The figurative meaning to the word (deen):

1- It refers to religion as the path in which one walks/adopts in one's relation with God all one's lifetime on Earth, and the path must be chosen with absolute freedom.

2- Each individual must ask himself/herself if they figuratively walk within the Straight Path of Righteousness leading to God or crooked ways/paths leading one astray? Within the five daily prayers, we must implore the Almighty God in piety by saying: "Guide us to the Straight Path." (1:6). "Is he who walks bent on his own design better guided, or he who walks upright on a straight path?" (67:22). The Straight Path is ONLY the Quran and we are NOT to follow any other paths: "This is the Straight Path of your Lord. We have explained the verses in detail for people who recollect." (6:126); "This is My Straight Path, so follow it. And do not follow the other paths, lest they divert you from His Path. All this He has enjoined upon you, that you may attain piety." (6:153).